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I teach LGBTQ Studies. There is no way on god's green earth we should allow AI to fabricate LGBTQ historical figures to "fill in the gaps." To do so is double erasure: "no, we don't know who our ACTUAL queer ancestors are, but no worries, AI will hallucinate some for us 🙄 Hard pass on this, thanks.

The number of our fellow academics who think that what historians and archivists do is gather up the papers and then just read them outloud and call that research is amazing. If I was this dismissive of science research I'd be a quack.

"It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write."

Dr. Pollyanna Rhee’s important new book Natural Attachments examines the history of Santa Barbara, its idealized image, environmentalism, property owners, and oil to make us think anew about US environmentalism, property rights, and energy. I was delighted to participate in this roundtable on it.

The first sentence of this review is, "Kylie Smith wrote an angry book." 1. The construction of that opening line is sexist AF. 2. It's sexist AF, but in an academic book review, it's unacceptable. 3. Everyone should be angry about racism in psychiatry. If you're not, that's a you problem.

But the goal of historical research is not a complete narrative, as common and important a by-product of historiography as narratives are. The always-ongoing, always-unfinished, always-present, always-renewed pursuit of understanding -- through research, writing, and reading alike -- is the point.

Some stray thoughts on gap-filling. Take them for what they are 1. Gaps in archives are not like rips in clothing; they don't have a well defined and wholly known, or in the broadest sense wholly knowable, shape or extent. You can't cut a patch for them or fill them with putty and smooth them over.

4. A problem with fabricating "historical" sources to "fill in the blanks" of a narrative of pre-established parameters is that the parameters of the narrative cannot but shape the "sources" rather than the other way around. Historical actors become characters. Categorically, they cannot surprise.

"Critical hopeful environmental histories can help us navigate the challenges of the Anthropocene, not least by foregrounding stories of resilience and sustainability." - @tinaadcock.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2017/06/05/d... #envhist #hope

Lauren Merry Vale (they/she)

15h

Rebranding a hallucination as a ‘critical confabulation’ that can fill archival gaps is a big no from me.

One of the very insidious expressions of sexism in academia is when men tell women their scholarship is ‘emotional’ or frame their anger or emotions as the first framing perception of our work, and at this point in 2026, I refuse to give people who do this any benefit of the doubt

Andrew Hobbs

Lawrence Culver

Peter Whitewood

Ted McCormick

Jacqueline Antonovich

NiCHE Canada

Joanna L. Pearce, Ph.D.

Aparna Nair

God forbid you should have FEELINGS when you’ve spent 6 years labouring over a book that documents the vile history of racism in psychiatry. God forbid I should be ANGRY about it, or expect my reader to be.